


Peacefully, In My Sleep

by FarenMaddox



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-19 00:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FarenMaddox/pseuds/FarenMaddox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every night, it seems, Tomoyo walks in dreams.  Fai's are particularly unpleasant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peacefully, In My Sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fifty Ways to Kill Your Lover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/204618) by [Mikkeneko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko). 



> This was written for a Remix Challenge on the LiveJournal KuroFai community. Please read the original fic if you want to have a clue what's going on here.

She rolled over as she woke, clutching at her chest with both hands.  It took a mere second for her brain to understand that she’d dreamed and was now awake in her own room; it took several minutes for her heart to stop pounding like a hunted rabbit’s.  One hand pressed down on the skin of her chest but the other hand crept out to find a tiny doll buried in her bedclothes.

Her mother made her the doll when she was only a toddler.  She remembered nothing of her mother but the soft smell and feel of being held in her arms.  She kept it now as a talisman when the nights were dark.

Moonlight wavered through the paper screens and cast strange shadows on the floor. She held the doll silently and watched the floor.  Watched light and dark play together in her room.  It was always this way, always since she was small.  Light and dark moved together in her, watched over by the shifting moon.  Her dreams.  The power was a gift and a responsibility, and she used it gratefully to watch over her loved ones and protect them however she could.

If someone had ever asked her if she wanted to be a dreamseer, she would have said “no.”

She was silent and still in her bed, but her heart cried out against it.  She wanted to get up, rouse a servant, and demand water for washing.  The hot, sticky blood that had welled up from the wound punched in the magician’s chest . . . That room had been so cozy, with the fire burning bright and cheerful, and her skin still felt warm from it.

 _(Was that the only reason she felt so warm?  Of course.  Of course it was.)_

She usually did not visit other people’s dreams unless she had a specific reason; a message to convey or a push to give the dreamer.  She thought she’d only slipped into Fai’s dream by accident, because she’d gone to sleep concerned about her missing guard and wondering where to look for him amongst the stars she saw through the window.  She would not let that happen again.

Still, her heart ached.  She had already seen where the two men were heading, and she wished that the magician was not so very frightened.  Kurogane was not a man like the one Fai dreamed of.

 _(She was almost certain he wasn’t.)_

 

* * *

 

 _She was told that the boy was too shattered and dangerous to be trained.  He barely slept or ate, choosing to pace restlessly around the castle and grounds.  She was told to stay away from him because he could hurt her._

 _Instead, Tomoyo found him crouching near a koi pond, restless and watching the fish with a haunted darkness in his eyes.  She sat delicately beside him.  She had a sweet bun in her hands, still warm from the kitchen.  She tore it in half and held it out to him.  Silently, he took his half and took a bite, eyeing her as if to be sure she was pleased.  She smiled and took a bite of her own.  He didn’t push her away when she carefully touched an untreated cut on the back of his hand._

 _“Would you allow one of my servants to bandage this for you?  If you are going to be one of my guards, you ought to take better care of yourself.”_

 _“Who said I’m going to be one of your guards?” he muttered sullenly._

 _She only smiled at him and giggled, and she was amazed to see a small smile tug at the corners of his lips, too.  He could still smile._

 _A guard took a sudden step behind them.  The broken boy leapt to his feet, whirling around and bringing his sword to bear in front of him.  Her guards were well-trained and very fast; his sword clanged against the guard’s with a terrible noise that made Tomoyo’s teeth ache._

 _But he could still smile.  That was something._

 

* * *

 

She coughed as she woke up, desperate for the clean taste of the air of Nihon’s crisp autumn midnight.  She rolled over and shuddered.  Her fingers reached out for the doll, but closed instead on her bedclothes and gripped them tight in her fist.

She did not want these dreams.  These were not her dreams.  This was not true dreaming, these things would not come to pass.  But Fai was afraid, and she had slipped so easily inside his dream that at first she hadn’t known what it was.  Even now, her chest was tight with the panic of suffocation.

 _(Her skin was flushed with embarrassment.  She was certain it was embarrassment and nothing more.)_

Why had she seen this again?  She had been thinking about the group of travellers again, hoping that they were safe and well.  She’d gone to bed wondering what their world looked like tonight.  Well, now she knew.  She could wish that she’d remained ignorant—but she didn’t.  She had seen that they were all safe and making progress.  She knew that the princess she cherished was cared for.  She knew that her friend and guard was moving closer to the person he belonged with.

 _(Seeing this horror was not a fair trade-off for knowing that her precious people were safe.  It wasn’t.)_

Fai longed for Kurogane, and she wished that part of things was in her power.  Sending him was all she had been able to do.  The rest was up to them.

 

* * *

 

 _The swords clanging in the yard.  Sweat trickling slowly down her back, pooling up in a damp patch where her sash was tied on her back.  Bugs buzzing lazily through shimmering summer air._

 _She had walked with her sister that day, over a footpath, and had seen the ninja at their training.  Their booted feet scuffled in the stones as they wove their killing dances and their swords rang together, the sound muffled by the heat.  The two of them had paused there to watch._

 _Tomoyo knew even back then that the ninja named Souma was more precious to her sister than simply as a guard.  She’d seen them sitting together on a verandah at night, faces lit by lantern light and talking quietly, a soft touch when they were sure they were alone.  But she didn’t think the divine Amaterasu was supposed to be ogling the sweat-slicked skin of the guard where anyone could see her do it.  She tugged on her sister’s sleeve._

 _“No harm just in looking,” was the far-away reply, her face softened with happiness.  “Once in a while,” she murmured, not paying attention to her own words._

 _Today, Souma was sparring with one of Tomoyo’s guards.  Kurogane was much larger but also younger and less trained.  Tomoyo found herself amazed at how well he fought against Souma.  His limbs, still gawky and too long as he grew into them, were full of such power and grace even now that she wondered at how much better he would become.  He’d been at her side since she was small—since he was small—and while they both still had growing to do she could see now just how far they’d come._

 _And he didn’t have a shirt on.  There was sweat trickling over his tanned skin._

 _This was very unseemly, and her tutor would be horrified if he knew.  Tomoyo tugged Kendappa’s sleeve urgently and walked onward, her face hidden behind curtains of hair to hide the flush in her cheeks.  It was true that Kurogane was becoming a man while she watched, and what she needed to concern herself with now was repairing his broken heart.  The grief was still so raw that touching it caused him to snarl and recoil like a wounded animal, but she knew that there was more than simple violence behind his brutish strength.  Her job was to start drawing it out of him._

 _She was twelve years old, and that night was the first time she saw Kurogane’s future._

 _Even in her dreams, her heart was immediately captured by the laughing warmth and delicate cheekbones of the princess of Clow.  She let that soothe the strange ache she felt upon waking, when she realized that her most loyal servant would leave her to give his strength to a slender man with eyes like a frozen sky._

 

* * *

 

She felt an ache in her bones, such that she didn’t want to move.

So quiet, so delicate, the way he’d tucked that flower into blond hair and kissed him.  A side of him she’d never seen.  But Fai had no trouble imagining it—had he seen that part of Kurogane already?  A part of him she hadn’t seen yet?  All roads in her dreams led to Seresu, led to death no matter how she’d tried to find another way, but she couldn’t see beyond Seresu.  Her dreams were blocked.  She wanted and hoped to believe that Kurogane would forgive Fai and treat him so tenderly.

 _(But the branch from the tree . . . that side of him, she knew.  The silhouette of a dark man with moonlight spilling over his bloodied blade was always in her mind.)_

Why did she hurt so much?  It wasn’t her that had been beaten.  In reality, it wasn’t Fai, either.  But the both of them were becoming badly bruised by these dreams.  She didn’t know why she couldn’t keep them out.  She had such fine control over the wandering in her dreams, and she didn’t understand why so many nights it wasn’t the future and it wasn’t a message, it was the magician and his horrible fears.

Her skin was damp with sweat.  She ached strangely.  She slid her hands down—one found the doll from her mother and held it with relief, while the other moved lightly over her own hip and further down.  Damp.  Two beautiful men, tangled together, tongues and lips and _heat_ —

She choked on a sob.  She pushed the doll away and turned her head to watch the shadows from the paper screens.  The moon was nothing but a tiny slice in the sky, and the patterns on the floor were very dark.

 

* * *

 

 _It’s time._

 _The thought made her feel more calm, rather than less.  She’d known this day was rapidly approaching, and while she had kept what she knew entirely to herself, she’d fretted about it in her own mind.  She must send him away now, because everything was moving toward that country that stopped her dreams and made it so she couldn’t see the end._

 _She was only too aware that simply dreaming about the future did not mean it would definitely happen.  People made choices, and other things could happen.  Would she know, if something changed?  What if her beloved servant came to harm and she did not see it in time to help him?  Yes, she fretted.  Said nothing.  Waited._

 _Now it was time to send him, and her greatest feeling was relief.  Whether she saw it or not, events were finally in motion and now all she had to do was wait and perhaps watch.  She no longer needed to worry about it, because it was already here._

 _She did not wish it could be different, because she knew it was inevitable.  But she trembled to think of what was to come.  He would be hurt, and she would miss talking to him on the quiet nights when she was not in danger but he would not leave her side._

 _Sakura needed him more than she did.  And he belonged to Fai._

 _“Your highness . . .” Souma was saying in shock as she watched Kurogane disappear._

 _She gave some kind of answer to the ninja, but her heart was not in it.  She turned away from them all, retreating to her rooms._

 _“We’ll meet again. We’ll meet again.”  That was a thing she did not know, no matter how she repeated it.  She could not see the end from here.  “Please be well, Kurogane,” she whispered again._

 _Fai . . . Fai . . . Keep him safe._

 

* * *

 

She came awake with a gasping, heaving sob, sitting upright and tangling her fingers in her hair.  She stared at the shadows on the floor.  She’d always known it was like this for her.  Dark and light.  A gift that could protect could also cause harm.  She’d always known it was her responsibility to keep the dark for herself and give the light away.

“I don’t want it,” she said, shuddering and hugging herself tight.

Again and again, her mind drifted into Fai’s.  Saw his fears and saw his hopes.  Ached with him as he saw evidence of a fierce love that he didn’t think he deserved.  _Ached_ with him.  There was a pounding like need in her blood, a taste of breathlessness on her lips.

“I don’t, I don’t want it, please . . .”

Tears dripped off her chin.  Fai’s dreams had assured her, as nothing else could, that her Kurogane would be saved from himself.  When he looked at Fai and said _“I wouldn’t hurt you,”_ she believed it.  Kurogane had found something so precious that he’d give himself away for it, and they were approaching, fast approaching now, the day when he would.  She believed Fai’s dreams, that the ninja would lay himself bare and give Fai every part of him down to his very skin.

Her hand was touching her breast through the thin silk of her sleeping clothes.  She heard her own breath hiss in her throat, and she drew her hand away with a soft cry.  She would cut it out of herself, cut away her dream sight, if only she could make this stop.

 _(Her control had always been so very precise.  She didn’t know why she couldn’t control this.)_

She wanted that much of Fai’s dreams to come true.  The two men had already gone through so very much.  She loved them both, now, and she wanted to make it come true.  To be so loved . . . might be enough to fix what was broken in them.  They would need time, and healing.  But it might be.

 _(In Fai’s dreams, they talked of doing their healing here.  She would be glad if they did.  She would.)_

It was the princess she needed to concern herself with now.  There was a dream she needed to dream, and soon.  The princess needed to see . . .

She lay herself back down and closed her eyes.  She clutched the tiny, worn doll of her childhood tight to her chest.

Sakura . . .

 

* * *

 

For one panicked moment, she was afraid that their arrival would be her undoing.

She didn’t know how long this situation had lasted; she knew it had gone on far too long.  It seemed that nearly every night, she would wake from Fai’s dreams with panting breath and twisted, sweat-dampened sheets.  She would ache and tingle and she would sob bitterly.  One night, she vomited and she told a chambermaid that she’d eaten something bad and she’d had to stop her sister from dismissing half the kitchen staff.  She’d put away the doll from her mother, unwilling to touch it anymore.  She would wake with her hands fisted in her nightclothes and trembling.

It came time to pay the price to bring them to Japan, and now she knew why she could never see beyond Seresu.  She couldn’t seem to push her power through Yuuko’s portal fast enough, but she spent the rest of the day dizzily sick and strangely empty.  Her next night was barren of dreams and she woke up so frightened of the nothingness that she couldn’t catch her breath for hours.  She held her head high and she carried on with her duties as best she could.

The sight of them nearly broke her.

Sakura—that was, Sakura’s beautiful and precious shell—was splayed out over Syaoran’s lap and Tomoyo trembled to take her into her own arms.  And Kurogane . . . Oh, it _hurt._   She would have wept, if she could.  But that was not her place, not now.  It was given to Fai to kneel on the ground and shake with fear and grief.  She gently cupped his cheek, no matter how she wished to join him there, and she reassured him.  There was a split second, her breath held tight in her chest, when she wondered if she would rake her nails down his face and chase him away.

She smiled at him.  She drew him to his feet.  And when Kurogane was being sewn and bandaged, she held him and let him cry in her arms.  It was only when they were told Kurogane was out of danger that she left him to ensure her instructions regarding Sakura were being carried out.

She had believed that her loss was her own burden to bear.  She had not spoken of it to any but Yuuko.  She had forgotten that Fai was just as perceptive as the man he loved, and her heart had skipped a beat when he questioned her about her power at the sacred tree.  Many other things were happening that day, and their conversation was interrupted.

But they waited three days for the right moment to travel to Clow.  In those three days, Fai found her again.  This time, they were alone and Fai did not hesitate.

“I felt you there, princess,” he said harshly.  “At first I was too distracted to notice, but I did feel you.  I didn’t have enough power to speak to you in the dream, unfortunately.”

She bowed her head far too low for someone of her station, and she thought he could not see her face.  “I beg your forgiveness.  I did not intend to be there, I assure you, I—”

There was a gentle hand, horrible and inappropriate, touching her chin and lifting her face up.  “I’m so sorry you saw that.”

It was wrong for her to encourage such familiarity with someone of her station—her hand rose and laid itself over his, calloused and warm on her cheek.

“The intrusion—I—”  A tear slipped over their joined hands, trickling into the cracks between their fingers.

“I don’t know why it happened that way,” Fai said quietly.  “It doesn’t matter.  Such a lovely girl should not have seen such things.  If I was the reason you chose to give away your dream sight, then I owe you a greater debt than I imagined.”

“Why would you owe me any debt at all?” she whispered.

“For giving me Kurogane,” he smiled, and then the tall man gathered her against his chest, heedless of her elaborate headdress so that his warm arms could hide her tears.  “You have given up so much on our behalf, princess.  Alas, I fear I will be leaving too soon to be able to give you anything in return.”

She didn’t need anything in return, because it seemed Fai understood so much and forgave her for all of it and so she was also able to forgive him.  But her words spilled out over her lips with her salty tears.

“You’ll come back.  You will both come back.”

“Was that something you foresaw?” Fai asked, his voice still gentle though his arms were tight over her.

“No.  Only something I see now.  And I will be so glad when you return here, Fai.”

She would be.  Truly.

She feared that Fai’s dreams would linger even though she would no longer see them.  The night they left for Clow Country, she lay awake long into the night, aching with the knowledge that her sleep would be quiet and dark and full of silence.  The moon was bright in the sky that night, and the shadows through the screens were crisply edged and beautiful.


End file.
